Iraq’s Constitution, a key plank of the United States’s exit strategy, was in turmoil on Wednesday as Sunni members of the drafting committee walked out, Kurdish leaders said they could live without a deal, and women’s groups baulked at a proposal to give a strong role to Islamic law.
Iraqi legislators also complained that US and British officials were interfering because they were keen for the August 15 deadline to be met.
The 13 Sunni Arab members of the 71-strong drafting committee walked out after the assassination on Tuesday of two colleagues outside a Baghdad restaurant.
”The environment in Iraq isn’t right for anyone to get work done,” council member Salih al-Mutlaq said.
Another Sunni member of the team, who requested anonymity, said: ”If our security can be guaranteed then we will return.”
Fifteen Sunni members were added to the committee last month in an attempt to reach out to the once dominant Sunni minority. Sunni militants regard any dealings with Iraq’s US-backed political establishment as treason.
There were further political boycotts on Wednesday. Half of Basra’s provincial council walked out in protest at the increasing number of assassinations and kidnappings, and poor public services.
The country’s interim law sets a deadline of August 15 for a draft to be agreed. It will then be put to a nationwide referendum by mid-October. The Constitution will form the basis for elections in December. With violence still raging in parts of the country, there were hopes that a smooth drafting process would wrest the initiative from the insurgents.
But discussions have exposed Iraq’s ethnic and sectarian fault lines. Sources close to the talks say Kurds and Sunni Arabs ”are far apart” over issues such as federalism, Kirkuk and the rights of the regions to exploit natural resources.
Secularists and Islamists disagree over the role of sharia law. A draft chapter of the Constitution dealing with the role of Islamic law has angered women’s groups. They fear proposals to involve religious authorities in personal status laws will destroy freedoms gained over decades in Iraq.
Nechirvan Barzani, the prime minister of the Kurdistan regional government in Irbil, said yesterday that Kurds would rather continue without a Constitution than sign up to a ”half-baked” document that puts off key issues in order to meet the deadline.
”We want an agreement and we will spare no effort to achieve one by the August deadline,” said Barzani. ”But it will be impossible for us to accept a Constitution if we know that the demands and the aspirations of the Kurdish people on federalism, Kirkuk and the control of natural resources in our region have not been met.”
He said Kurds believed that foreign policy, defence and monetary policy should be handled by the federal government in Baghdad, but ”everything else should go to the regions”.
The Kurds’ wish to decentralise is opposed by the Sunni Arabs, who want to see a strong central government. ”Our patience with the Sunnis has a limit,” said Barzani, who heads the newly unified Kurdish administration.
He said Kurds could never accept a Sunni Arab demand to describe Iraq as being part of the Arab nation. ”If they want to say that the Arab part of Iraq is part of the Arab nation, that is fine. Then we can say the Kurdish part of Iraq is part of the Kurdish nation. But somehow I don’t think they’ll agree to that.”
Iraq’s interim law provides for a six-month extension for a Constitution, but US officials say there must be no slippage. The eagerness to see a deal done on time has led to accusations of heavy-handedness and raised concerns about the potentially negative effects of a ”rushed document”.
”The US and the UK are working behind the scenes, dealing with all the groups, saying it should be like this and it should be like that,” said Barzani. ”Like the Sunnis they seem to want to centralise power in Baghdad — it’s very disappointing.”
Mahmoud Othman, a member of the constitutional committee in Baghdad, said US and UK officials were being governed by their domestic agendas. ”They and the British are meeting individually behind the scenes with members of the committee. It’s not right and is counterproductive. If they have something to say, why don’t they come and address the whole committee?”
Othman said that the Kurds and their senior coalition partners, the Shia Alliance, were in broad agreement on many issues, but meeting the deadline was doubtful. ”Iraq hasn’t had a good Constitution in 80-plus years. Will it really make a difference if we wait a few more months to get it right?” – Guardian Unlimited Â